Our Library Collections: Nebraska
Posted by: Chris Pattillo
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One of the more recent editions of Nebraska
Ancestree |
One in a series by CGS member Chris Pattillo highlighting some of our holdings at the Library in Oakland. For a fuller listing of our books, journals, and more, consult the CGS Library catalog in WorldCat.I have been keen to review Nebraska since I started this series because my life partner Dianne is a native of Nebraska. She has no interest in genealogy but one can always hope. A search of the CGS catalog shows that we hold some 120 books and 112 journal articles on the subject of Nebraska, as well as two maps and a few miscellaneous items. Most of the books occupy three and a half shelves in the main stacks. These include two sets of journals – Nebraska History Magazine (1931-1974) and the Nebraska State Genealogical Society’s Ancestree (1983-2017). They are followed by three state histories – one of which is slightly over 1,500 pages and so heavy I had to brace myself while lifting it down from the shelf.
We have three Who’s Who books, one of which consists entirely of head shots of individual Nebraska men and a list of their names. Sad to say, while flipping through this 300-page book with four images per page I did not see a single woman whom the authors felt worthy of inclusion.
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This beautiful rendering of the school building in
Tekamah can be found in Johnson’s History of
Nebraska. |
Our Nebraska collection also has a few volumes that focus on individual counties. These include five volumes on Omaha and Douglas County. They include a two-volume set titled Omaha: The Gate City, and Douglas County, Nebraska dated 1917. The set covers an extensive breadth of Omaha history, including a chapter on “Parks and Boulevards,” with brief descriptions of each of the twenty public parks and boulevards connecting them, plus a section on private pleasure grounds. This would be a tremendous source for anyone doing cultural landscape work. Other chapters offer subjects more directly tied to genealogical research.
One book that caught my eye was A. C. Edmunds’ Pen Sketches of Nebraskans, published in 1871. It is a small, red-covered book that feels like a prayer book. The cover page is signed by Martha Turner from Lincoln, Nebraska. What follows is 500 pages of biographies for their state senators, state representatives and dozens of early citizens of the state.
Copyright © 2019 by California Genealogical Society
27
MAR
2019
